Meta

dumbfuckery du jour

I know, I know, there’s plenty of Con dumbfuckery to bash. But let’s face facts: we already know they’re a bunch of remarkable dumbfucks who shouldn’t be trusted with pointy scissors, much less public office. And besides, Mary Landrieu’s probably headed for their ranks just as soon as she forgets that the Teabagging masses don’t elect former Dems. She’s already getting her practice at pulling remarkably fucktarded Con stunts:

Last month, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) announced that she would be blocking “the nomination of Office of Management and Budget [OMB] director Jack Lew until the Obama administration lifts its deepwater drilling moratorium,” singlehandedly hobbling the OMB.

Today, the Obama administration announced that it will be ending its deepwater drilling moratorium. “The policy position that we are articulating today is that we are open for business,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters at a news conference. Yet Landrieu said in a statement today that she still refuses to lift her hold on Lew’s nomination, and will continue to “evaluate if today’s lifting of the moratorium is actually putting people back to work” and “whether or not drilling activity in both shallow and deep water is resuming” over the next month before making a decision…

Even your average hostage taker is more reasonable than these shit-for-brains wanna-be Cons.

So, my dear Louisiana voters, if you elect to send Landrieu into an early retirement, you have my blessing. It’s just too bad she won’t end up on unemployment with no prospect of a job, her benefits set to expire because shit-for-brains supposed Senators can’t see their way clear to extending them, living in a box on an oil-slicked beach, watching as the oil companies collect their subsidies, fuck over our environment, and laugh all the way to the bank. Seeing her kicked out of office shall have to suffice.

As ThinkProgress has noted, there are currently two competing visions of governance in the United States. One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well off and privileged sectors of the country. The other vision, the progressive one, believes in an American Dream that works for all people, regardless of their racial, religious, or economic background.

The conservative vision was on full display last week in Obion County, Tennessee. In this rural section of Tennessee, Gene Cranick’s home caught on fire. As the Cranicks fled their home, their neighbors alerted the county’s firefighters, who soon arrived at the scene. Yet when the firefighters arrived, they refused to put out the fire, saying that the family failed to pay the annual subscription fee to the fire department. Because the county’s fire services for rural residences is based on household subscription fees, the firefighters, fully equipped to help the Cranicks, stood by and watched as the home burned to the ground.

RIP three dogs and a cat that burned to death because firefighters wouldn’t take the $75 Mr. Cranick offered them and do their fucking jobs. I have no idea how these fucktards can live with themselves. I have no idea what kind of fucktards thought a subscription service rather than a simple tax would be a brilliant idea.

Quite soon, we’ll start hearing about how emergency services would do much better if they were privatized, as the free market is almost godlike in its ability to solve our every problem. City and state governments, they’ll say, should contract with private entities for the provision of fire and police services. Why, that would be almost as good as cutting programs meant to help icky poor people out of the budget! Someone should explain the history of private firefighting to them and ask if they’re pining for a return to those halcyon days of private enterprise.

And here I come to find out that you don’t have to travel all the way back to nineteenth century America – why, you can just head down to rural Tennessee to see good ol’ private emergency services in action! Wait, I mean, inaction.

As for those who, like Glenn Beck, argue that the Cranicks could’ve avoided all this by simply paying up, let me just mention that a) putting out fires before they spread to neighboring, fully-subscribed properties isn’t a bad idea, b) watching as helpless animals and a family’s home burn to the ground is a sociopathic thing to do and c) people don’t always make farsighted decisions, which is why some decisions shouldn’t be left to them. I’m sure if we dug into your life, Glenn, we’d find some pretty piss-poor contingency planning lurking around somewhere. And who’s gonna scream loudest if someone doesn’t come rescue you? You, that’s who. Conservatives always pull that shit. They’ll all sneer and “personal responsibility” and free market until it’s their property in flames, and then it’s one long, sustained tantrum because the government they starved to death didn’t save them.

There are basic things a civilization needs in order to be a civilization. A tax base that provides essential services like fire, emergency and police to every member of a community is one. And if, because Cons hate taxes so much they’d rather pay a fee instead of a tax, a community ends up with a primitive-fucking fire department based on a subscription service, the least bit of human fucking decency should dictate that at the very least, when the homeowner’s proffering payment on the spot, you put out his fucking fire. Or put out the fucking fire and bill him the fucking $75. Whatever. Just fight the fucking fire.

This, my darlings, is what happens when the shortsighted voting public elects the sociopaths. Not pretty, is it?

Think carefully on that before you head to the polls this November.

Share the Verdad:

I wish Cons would settle on a century. Some of them seem to want to return us to the glory days of the Middle Ages. Some yearn for the days of the robber barons and child labor. Some seem to be pining for the halcyon days of the Puritans, or burning for Revolutionary War times. This is a new one on me, though:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), he of “terror baby” fame, is fond of wandering onto the House floor at odd times and sharing odd thoughts that pop into his head. Last night, Gohmert offered this gem:

“We have people on welfare and I know there’s some that just don’t wanna work, but there’s some that do. How ’bout if instead of the welfare, we give ’em an alternative. We’ll give you so many acres that can provide land where you can live off of it, make a living and we’ll give you seed money to start, but you have to sign an agreement that you’ll never accept welfare again. How ’bout that? We got plenty of land.”

is a fantasy. It’s not reality. It’s nostalgia for an era that never really was.

This

is reality (.pdf). Notice that 60% of all farms make less than $10,000 per year. And a fair number of those that make more do so with government subsidies. Go have a look, Louis. I know these numbers may be hard for a brain dead fucktard like you to understand, but get someone on your staff to write it up as a Dick and Jane book for you.

Either that, or go try to make your own living on a few miserable acres of substandard farmland, and let’s see how long it is before you start screaming for help. I’m a generous person, and I understand you have your pride, so I’ll give you a week.

What a dumbass. And to think we’ll have a whole new crop of little Louies running around Congress come next January. Fanfuckingtastic.

Stan Collender speculated over the weekend that Senate Republicans may very well try to shut down the pre-adjournment legislative schedule, and possibly even try to shut down the government, this week. As it turns out, Collender was onto something. Roll Call reports on a new GOP scheme that the newspaper accurately describes as “remarkable.”

Sen. Jim DeMint warned his colleagues Monday night that he would place a hold on all legislation that has not been “hot-lined” by the chamber or has not been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday. […]

Traditionally, the Senate passes noncontroversial measures by unanimous consent at the end of most workdays, a process known as hot-lining. DeMint, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and others have fought against the practice for years and have dedicated staff members to reviewing bills that are to be hot-lined.

As a result, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have generally given DeMint, Coburn and others time to review legislation before proceeding with unanimous consent agreements.

But in a terse e-mail sent to all 100 Senate chiefs of staff Monday evening, Steering Committee Chief of Staff Bret Bernhardt warned that DeMint would place a hold on any legislation that had not been hot-lined or been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday.

Roll Call added that aides from both parties were “stunned” by DeMint’s stunt, which effectively amounts to “a unilateral decision to end legislative activity in the Senate.” If he doesn’t personally approve of a measure, DeMint will kill it.

If this doesn’t force a reconsideration of Senate rules and procedure, nothing will. When one squalling infant can stamp his little feet and bring the entire body to a howling halt, it’s time to ensure that there are methods in place to paddle said squalling infants right on their bottoms.

But according to Senate candidate Ron Johnson, those jobs that do stay in the United States should come with the optional extra of corporate immunity if the kiddies get hurt. That’s right. He’s totally against holding businesses accountable if they coulda woulda shoulda prevented their employees from abusing children. Can’t let a little thing like liability (or common human decency) stand in the way of commerce!

Anyone get the sense that if these folks emigrated, America’s collective morality would suddenly rocket up by about 100%? Maybe we should offshore Senators….

Millionaire businessman John Raese, running as the GOP Senate nominee to fill Robert Byrd’s West Virginia seat, wants to take the state back to the 19th century. Not only does he want to return capitalism to the era before child labor laws, Social Security, and civil rights laws, he also promotes a pre-industrial vision of science. In an interview with Real Clear Politics, Raese said he has “zero” trust that “human activity is contributing to climate change”:

The oceans that surround the world produce 185 billion tons of CO2 per annum. Man per annum only produces six billion tons, so what could possibly be the concern? One volcano puts out more toxic gases-one volcano-than man makes in a whole year. And when you look at this “climate change,” and when you look at the regular climate change that we all have in the world, we have warm and we have cooling spells.

Although Raese is well-versed in conspiracy-theory talking points, they’re as nonsensical as his desire to abolish the Departments of Energy and Education. Human activity puts about 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, well over 100 times as much as all the volcanoes in the world. The oceans actually vent about 332 billion tons of CO2 per year, but also absorb that much.

There seems to be an exam you have to pass in order to become a Con candidate. Questions include:

Are you terminally insane?

Are you a frothing fundie fucktard?

Are you completely ignorant of science?

If you answer yes to all three, you are qualified to win the hearts and ostensible minds of the Teabagging masses. Our government is poised to be filled with people who make my dear maternal uncle, who once went off his meds and decided to hold up a bank in order to obtain the funds for a boat so that he could become a pirate, look completely rational and scholarly.

I think I should begin stocking up on alcohol. I’ll need bathtubs full come November.

In the spring of 1930, the Senate considered the following resolution:

Whereas dial telephones are more difficult to operate than are manual telephones; and Whereas Senators are required, since the installation of dial phones in the Capitol, to perform the duties of telephone operators in order to enjoy the benefits of telephone service; and Whereas dial telephones have failed to expedite telephone service; Therefore be it resolved that the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate is authorized and directed to order the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. to replace with manual phones within 30 days after the adoption of this resolution, all dial telephones in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol and in the Senate office building.

(Note to new readers: the comment system doesn’t hate you, it’s just set to moderate comments after X days to stymie spammers. Sorry ’bout that!)

On to modern dumbfuckery, then, and nothing’s entertained me more this week than watching Cons unveil their Pledge to America to near-universal derision. How desperate are they for some sign, any sign, that somebody somewhere doesn’t think their Pledge is a ridiculous fucking waste of time? So desperate they’re pretending Stephen Colbert is who he pretends to be:

House Republicans have had a tough time getting anyone — even fellow conservatives and Republicans — to endorse their new gimmicky “Pledge to America” they rolled out yesterday. Newt Gingrich, David Frum, Erick Erickson, the Club for Growth, conservative radio hosts, and even some GOP House candidates aren’t too thrilled with the recycled Republican pledges.

It seems Republicans are so desperate for someone to endorse the Pledge that they are now touting the fake support from a fictional character. Today, Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert testified — in character — before Congress on migrant labor issues. During the hearing, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) noted that Colbert supports giving lawmakers 72 hours to read bills before they’re voted on and extrapolated that Colbert must support the entire Pledge because that “idea” is within it. Later, Colbert reassured Smith with this satirical response:

COLBERT: By the way I do endorse your policies. I do endorse your policies. You asked me if I endorse Republican policies. I endorse all Republican policies without question.

[snip]

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was so happy someone announced support of the GOP’s “Pledge” that he promoted Colbert’s (fake) endorsement on twitter:

That’s just too pathetic for words. If they truly don’t understand that Stephen Colbert’s schtick is just a schtick, then we’re in uber-pathetic territory and accelerating as near-light speeds towards epic stupidity. Put it like this: I probably won’t die of shock if that proves to be the case.

The Washington Postran an item the other day that, at first blush, doesn’t seem especially political, but is worth considering in a larger context.

The issue is the spread of the brown marmorated stink bug through the mid-Atlantic states. They’re harmless to people — the don’t bite, sting, or carry diseases — but for the first time on the continent, they’re doing significant damage to crops, ornamental shrubs, and trees. And as homeowners are discovering, as the bugs begin moving inside as temperatures drop, “when squashed or irritated, the bugs release the distinctive smell of sweaty feet.”

The insects reached the U.S. in Allentown, Pa., in 2001, apparently as stowaways in a shipping container from Asia. Now they’re spreading, they have no known natural predators, and there’s “no easy way to kill lots of the bugs at once.” Complicating matters, “the invasion is only going to get worse.”

So, where’s the political angle?

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Republican who represents Maryland’s rural 6th District, sent a letter Friday, signed by 15 members of Congress, asking U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson to take immediate action to limit damage caused by Halyomorpha halys.

Of the 15 members who signed the letter, eight of them are Republicans — all from states between West Virginia and New Jersey, and all fairly conservative members of the GOP caucus. The group of lawmakers are looking for “coordinated federal government assistance” from the Obama administration to help farmers and local economies deal with the bugs.

[snip]

There seems to be a bit of disconnect here between Republican ideology and real-world problems. On the one hand, conservative lawmakers like Bartlett hate “big government,” the EPA, federal regulations, and government bureaucrats. This year, plenty of GOP candidates are talking about eliminating the EPA, firing parts of the federal workforce, scrapping regulations, and slashing spending on various agencies.

Shouldn’t conservative lawmakers, right about now, expect the free market to offer a solution to the stink-bug problem? Why hasn’t the GOP offered everyone a tax credit for fly swatters and facemasks? Why aren’t Tenthers running around demanding to know where, exactly, the Constitution empowers the federal government to deal with an insect infestation?

Apparently, when confronted with the potential horror of smelling sweaty feet in their very own homes, Cons can be persuaded to abandon their principles and scream for Mommy. So here’s an idea for you, my darlings. Go collect yourselves some brown marmorated stink bugs. They should fit easily in a match box or some such container. Then bring them to your Con politician’s next town hall. When they start frothing at the mouth over the evul gubmint, remove the lid from your container, present the contents to the Con, and ask in calm and reasonable tones, “Then why did you scream for the ‘evul gubmint’ to eradicate these poor little pests?”

It’s probably just a matter of time before the Teabaggers start parading around with signs saying “Keep Your Government Hands Off Our Agricultural Pests.”

Share the Verdad:

The reasons for a special Friday Dumbfuckery are two. Firstly, I’ll be abandoning all you all for Oregon, which means no fresh pollyticks till Wednesday at the earliest. Secondly, and most importantly, both of the following items made me pound my desk with mirth. So I figured you should enjoy yourselves as well.

And just to get a sense of what kind of congressional candidate Glen Urquhart is, note that he believes the notion of separation of church and state was crafted, not by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, but by Adolf Hitler. He recently told voters, “[The] next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of church and state, ask them why they’re Nazis.”

The International House of Pancakes has a filed a lawsuit against a Kansas City, Mo.-based religious group that calls itself the International House of Prayer over the acronym “IHOP.”

[snip]

Amusingly, because trademark infringement cases often come down to whether the defendant’s use of the plaintiff’s mark is “likely to cause confusion” between the two parties, this case could turn upon whether anyone is likely to confuse a church with a pancake joint.

My friend Sean believes that it will all come down to whether IHOP (the church one) also hosts pancake breakfasts.

And, just in case you haven’t topped up on stupidity yet, the Texas Board of Education [sic] is at it again. This time, they have become upset because Muslim beliefs are mentioned more in Christian beliefs in textbooks that Texas students haven’t used since 2003.

I can hardly wait to see what the right wing comes up with next. It’s said that if you don’t laugh at these idiots, you’ll cry, but I’ve just ended up laughing so hard I cried anyway.

PG&E asked the PUC for permission for a $5 million rate hike to “replace a section of the same pipeline that blew up in San Bruno.” The PUC approved PG&E’s request, allowing it to hike its rates so that it could repair the line in 2009.

When not using the $5 million rate hike to repair the dangerous pipeline:

While the company failed to spend the $5 million it took from customers in 2009 to repair the faulty pipeline, it did spend that exact same amount in the same year on bonuses for its executives, according to TURN.

When asking for yet another $5 million rate hike to fix the dangerous pipeline in 2009:

In its request, PG&E warned that if “the replacement of this pipe does not occur, risks associated with this segment will not be reduced. Coupled with the consequences of failure of this section of pipeline, the likelihood of a failure makes the risk of a failure at this location unacceptably high.” Despite these admitted risks, the company could only promise to make its repairs by 2013.

And this is what they say about spending the five million meant to fix the deadly pipeline on executive bonuses, and spending further millions that could’ve fixed the pipeline on trying to buy a monopoly instead:

Local news station KTVU asked PG&E President Chris Johns why his company failed to make the repairs on schedule, despite recognizing that the pipeline was a considerable risk and using a rate hike on consumer to do it. “Some things happen when we’re going down, and a year later maybe some other item becomes more emergent that we need to fix,” replied Johns. “And so that’s why we will redirect funds to take care of the things that are urgent today, and then go back and say what are the things that are urgent tomorrow.”

Four people died and several were critically injured, while hundreds of others lost everything they had, because these assclowns didn’t think that pipeline was “urgent today.” Except, of course, when they were asking for more cash from their customers.

I’m not a huge believer in the death penalty. Not for individuals. But some corporations need to be put down like rabid dogs. PG&E is one. Send its executives to the unemployment lines, shut it down, and put people in charge of the utilities who believe that the things that are urgent today are the lives and safety of human beings, not the already-overflowing bank accounts of executives and manipulating the political system to further engorge an already engorged company.

These fucktards are beyond despicable. There should be no place for them in a civilized society.

You probably heard quite a bit of screaming Tuesday night. That was because the Dems were screaming for joy, unable to believe their luck, while Republican Party officials were howling, “We have to support what?” The Republican slate of candidates is now almost exclusively filled with freaks, lunatics, and incredibly fucking stupid people, and Cons know that once the non-Teabagging cadre of voters gets a good look at what’s on offer, they might run screaming to the other party no matter how disillusioned they’ve become. What was supposed to be a banner year for the Cons is rapidly turning in to a test of the Cons’ ability to sell insanity to the sane. The NRSC and others don’t seem to be terribly happy about it.

To which Steve Benen says, “Reap what you sow, you silly fuckers. Suck it!” Although he puts it in somewhat more polite terms.

I hope you had a few metric tons of popcorn and several thousand gallons of butter handy, my darlings. We shall need it this fall.

Share the Verdad:

It’s weird. Cons are getting their arses kicked in primary after primary by batshit fucking insane freaks, and yet they seem to have this overconfidence problem. They’re utterly positive they’re going to win big in November. So positive, it seems, that they have no qualms showing their true colors.

They’re throwing something of an orgy. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it seems they’re relishing some corporate dick-sucking. Why, today, Cons voted in lockstep to keep very burdensome IRS reporting requirements in place for small businesses. Is it because they’re throwing a tantrum over their pet proposed fix having gone down in flames? No. It seems they threw a tantrum because the sensible fix would have reduced subsidies to oil companies. That’s right. Businesses of all shapes and sizes will find themselves struggling to satisfy the tax man, but that’s okay to these Cons, because we couldn’t possibly pull oil companies’ mouths away from the public money fire hose.

How that one squares with Teabagger anti-IRS rhetoric is a mystery to me. Feel free to speculate.

“We can’t let the people who’ve been hit hardest by this recession and who we need to create the jobs that will get us out of it foot the bill for the Democrats’ two-year adventure in expanded government.”

Now, considering that the only people who are going to see any sort of tax cut expiration under the Dems’ plan are those who are already making a shitload of money, that’s a pretty amazing thing to say. “Hit hardest”? Why, according to Mitch McConnell, those of you who’ve lost your jobs altogether, who are struggling to put food on the table, who are losing your homes to foreclosure, you’re all doing just fine. It’s those poor rich people who maybe can’t afford the third mansion and the yacht who’re really suffering.

And as if that belief isn’t amazing enough, he also believes it’s a good idea for Cons to fight against tax breaks for the middle class. If the filthy rich can’t keep their tax cuts, McConnell’s reasoning goes, then the middle class and the poor can go fuck themselves and lose theirs, too. Interesting. I wonder what the Taxed-Enough-Already crowd will have to say when their tax bill comes up and it’s all Mitch’s fault? He must be counting on their native stupidity to help him sell the idea it’s all the Dems’ fault. And while I’ll admit Teabaggers can look and act pretty fucking stupid, I’m not sure they’re quite that stupid. Dangerous game you’re playing there, Mitch. And while you might fool all of the Teabaggers some of the time, I think you’re going to find the swing voters taking a swing away from you and yours if this little stunt succeeds. They may be pissed at Dems for, well, nearly everything just now, but when the Cons in Congress so blatantly stand with the rich against the middle class, not to mention directly affect the middle-class pocketbook, well, those angry independents might discover they’re not all that pissed off Dems after all.

I know that Dems are the champions in turning a winning situation into a losing one, but it seems like the Cons are scrambling hard to match up.